Yeah, B-hop is one world class *******, but missing one of his fights is a travesty.

But I never liked Pavlic. he got what he deserved. Well, not the 3 mil paycheck, but you know what I mean.

Roy Jones Jr. period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPT6E_ouBnM

While on the topic of RJJ, let's discuss speed.

Firstly, yes, genetics will play a part, a large part in how fast a person is when in the ring with their hands. Their reflexes. But how, beyond that to get faster?

Of course there will be many schools of thought on it. Various techniques people will use, to increase that speed, to make them a more effective and faster puncher. To make them more dangerous, feared. Heck, fun to watch too. But what I suggest is that many go wrong by trying to punch their way to speed. To in fact, train their way to a new level of quickness with the very weapons and methods of it's delivery.

What I suggest, and as certain others believe too, the ability to increase handspeed and effective delivery of said speed, begins long before one steps through the ropes. Before one works that speed bag. The dbl end bag. I believe it very much begins in the brain. That it is a process of training those neurons and receptors to understand that which process they are undergoing. To train those tendons, and muscles, that fast twitch fiber, to be ready long before any actual punch is ever thrown.

Part of my own process, is I tell myself, "I am going to be faster." I say it at night as I lay down to sleep. I tell myself that as I work whatever method I use to increase that quickness. I tell myself that again and again, and I try to visualize it. And I believe it works. And I believe far too many people underestimate the power of the mind.

In discussing this elsewhere, a rather well-known coach explained it as he sees it. I have great admiration and respect for the man. I will just call him H,

"Preparation is where People go wrong most of the time. Forget about Punching, think what you want the muscle to do then train the muscles adaptability to perform the action. Train the muscles Tendons and Neurons to perform what you want them to do. There are loads of little things you can do for speed of movement before applying it to practice."

or ya know, just I can discuss it...

Call him S instead.

Good post.

no

The past couple nights, I started making a post here but I got sidetracked, you know how it is...

I'm halfway through the workout week!

Monday
Showed up at 5:30 for advanced training, but our trainer was occupied with his prize fighter who has a main event match (132lb) this weekend. Naturally, the whole gym slowed down and watched. I warmed up and prepared to get in and spar with other competitive guys against whom I match up with, but basically I ended up watch the main eventer spar 8 straight rounds against rotating opponents, including my buddy, who wound up flat on his stomach halfway through his rounds At 6:30, they wrapped up the spar, and 8 of us suited up for sparring drills. We worked on blocking combos, and slipping punches. We had an excellent drill where we would face off in partners... I would walk backwards throwing 6 punches while my opponent would step in and slip them, and then we'd switch off back and forth. After this drill, I was able to slip jabs in sparring for the first time We finished with punch-outs at full intensity, 5 second intervals on and off for 3 rounds.

Tuesday
5:30 again for sparring class. Very first round... the trainer throws me in with our gym's top heavyweight fighter . I was very comfortable, and he went very easy on me as to allow my survival. After sitting out some rounds, I went in with another competitor who I've sparred several times before. I pushed him very hard, eating a lot of punches as I tried to get to the inside (he's got me outreached), and generally chasing him around the ring for the full 3 mins. Great round, lots of slipping punches. Round 3, I went against a very experienced boxer who had 75lbs on me.... ! He didn't take it quite as easy on me, and for the final minute I was doing some combination of dancing around him / stumbling backwards from his heavy landed and blocked punches alike. After this, I went in with my buddy for two rounds. My first southpaw match-up of the evening, and I was tired and unfocused. I probably should have called it quits after getting hammered by the super heavyweight... in my final round, my bud had me psyched out with his continual charging in with jabs, into a flurry of hooks. I was in my old bad habit of holding my hands out a foot in front of my face, plus I had my head turned to the right, and he landed a hard hook on my chin that stunned me and dropped me to a knee. Needless to say, that was the end of sparring for me yesterday When he comes in swinging with those hooks, I think it's useless for me to try and back out. I need to cover-up, take a couple hits on the gloves, and counter-flurry. I'm looking forward to trying this out next week.

Tonight, I'm going to pass on the early sparring, and get back to basics with a good warm-up + the 6:30 intermediate class. Thursday, as always, is the core-training circuit. A relatively light week this week, as I've sparred a good 15-20 rounds in the last two weeks. I think it's good to go hard, and to try to apply some of the skills from training in sparring, and then to get back to basics, to keep the skills sharp and to stomp out any bad habits acquired in sparring.

YB, your last post is sick. Could you elaborate more on techniques? I've never had much explosive speed before boxing, and even now, it's definitely not a strong point. Another question: I find the intermediate workout classes relatively easy now. We do a lot of work with gloves on obviously, like bag work, hand pads, etc. What if I used my 16oz sparring gloves for all this training, instead of the 10oz's? Any disadvantages?

Just stopping in to say how great this thread is. I've been a huge boxing fanatic ever since I was a young kid and, though I don't follow the amatuers, I do follow all the up and coming young pros and watch pretty much every fight on tv and read articles etc.

I've watched so many fights where people are like "that fight sucked" and my twin bro and I are sitting there like "Wtf? That was a great tactical matchup, etc."

I'm getting a lot out of this thread so keep posting.

Thanks a lot ThaHero. Am glad others are enjoying it, and the sport as well. I don't often jump into too many other threads on here, but I do read them, and get a great bit of insight and knowledge from them. It's all very much appreciated.

Raze, am going to address your post soon. I've read it several times already, and want to give it the appropriate time/response it deserves. As well, busy with the grind and life, so been keeping posts to short usually barely readable responses. I really liked your post, btw.

Great YB, I really appreciate everything you write in here as well! It's always great to get advice, especially when it's free.

I'd like to share with you guys a poker advice thread I've been running: Climbing the Ladder to $5/10NL. For all the great boxing talk in here, I'd like to match it by sharing some poker advice. I've done pretty well in that world, thanks in large part to these forums, so have a look at the thread and hopefully you can take something from it.

Haha, I've been reading that thread. Even posted in it like once or twice maybe lol. Great job and thanks for that thread raze.

And it is 10x worse when the announcers call it a boring fight. Shouldn't they at least be fans?

I found this book very useful....helped me lose 12+kg a couple of years ago...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boxing-Fitne...4310304&sr=8-1

Where I think too many go wrong, is as mentioned, in tryin to punch their way faster. Now certain things using the punch option I believe are good, like resistance bands for eg.

Other techniques I believe that are good, are say a dbl end bag, over a heavy bag. A heavy is good for a lot of reasons, but probably a detriment to building speed more then anything. So I'd say consider a dbl end over heavy. The speed bag is ok too, but that is more about hand-eye coordination.

What I think works best, is preparation. To try and incorporate things like explosive exercises long before you begin throwing punches. Clap push ups, things that require quick explosive outbursts. Are all sorts of body weight exercises that promote it. Shadow boxing after. Working the pads after. Doing things, exercises as such, in a tabata based format to make sure you are interacting with your fast twitch muscle fiber, and not your slow. You do that, and your tendons will follow suit. Then work the pads. The neurons in your brain will be learning to respond to it, and it will become reflex before long, and not a thought and body grinding process.

But most of all, before you do any of these things, think about them first. Visualize how you want them to go.

To quickly answer your question on gloves, around here (Canada & US) the rule of thumb is 16oz spar, 14 train, 10 ofc competitive for fighting. Now a lot believe wearing heavier mitts while training will promote faster speed before putting on the lighter gloves to fight. They couldn't be more wrong. This was proven beyond a doubt by sports scientists, and in particular in baseball, the heavy 2 bat or donut swings before stepping into the plate. For like 100+ years people have been doing this being fooled by the lighter feeling immediately after, somehow thinking it increased their bat speed. It doesn't. It slows it. Proven fact. Same goes for many things, so we can fairly, and safely assume weighted gloves do the same.

So my thoughts, are you wear your gloves for comfort and safety. If you are okay at hitting the bag with 10s, then do it. Not only will it not detract from speed, but it will help promote distance of punches. There is a fairly significant difference of distance (even ever so slight) in the weight distance between say a 16, and 10oz.

Not sure if this was clear as mud or not but these are my thoughts on your questions. Hope it helps some.

The double-end bag is highly recommended huh? I don't believe my gym even has one of those... I didn't know what this was until I looked it up just now :P So you don't believe the heavier gloves would be of much benefit while training? Up to about a month ago, I felt a huge difference when I strapped on the 16oz sparring gloves... like I was wayyy slower with the punches compared to my 10oz bag gloves, which seem to be the standard as far as I've seen. I'm not sure if most of the other guys are training with bigger gloves... I'll have a peek tonight.

It sounds like I should be focusing harder on these explosive exercises. We certainly do a lot of these in the classes, but I think I haven't been working hard enough at the explosive factor. When I first started, it was hard enough just to FINISH a full set of these push-ups, let alone with 100% power! From now on, I'll be going at these exercises harder.

Do you have an opinion on the volume of sparring in training? I've been going a good 8-12 rounds a week, split between Tuesday and Wednesday, for about a month. I feel this week, especially after taking some good shots last week, that I should take it down a notch and get back to basics. I'm planning on:

Monday: 2 hours advanced boxing class
Tuesday: 1 hour tough endurance class
Wed: 1 hour intermediate class
Thurs: 1 hour core/circuit class

My usual, minus the 2 hrs sparring.

There will be a difference in speed using heavier gloves, because, they are heavier. But it won't increase your handspeed is the point I am making. So when you strap on your 10s, right after using the 16s, it will feel as if you are faster then ever before with the 10s, but this isn't true. It's an illusion. It's been fooling baseball players and trainers forever. There are benefits to wearing heavier mitts, as in toning and things, but not much. Largely is protection. I stick to the standard formula. 16 spar, 14 train, and 10 comp.

Yes. Just make sure to work them into your routine correctly and not overdue. Have rest days from them.

While sparring is going to improve you quicker then anything else, sure, if it isn't going well and you need to back off, do it. Is a good opportunity to mentally focus on drills to increase speed, timing. Pride might need a break too.

Sparring can be a weird thing. Some days I've gone to the gym feeling grrrreat! Fully expect it to be something special that day. End up dragging my sorry feeling ass out the door with skid marks off my head, shinery black eye forming, taste of blood in my throat, cuz the whole time my timing was off and my defence for who the hell knows reason was non-existant, thinking, "What the hell what?!?!" lol

What will happen is you see things in a bigger picture. Maybe not next week, or even the week after, but at some point say 6 or 8 months from now, it is simply going to hit. "Holy crap!. That guy used the beat the hell out of me! Now I think I just took that session."

It's a cool feeling brother. But paid for in blood, sweat and tears.